Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Harold Holmyard <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Dear Gary,

> What I'm curious about, of course, is the fact that he uses past
> tense verbs to describe events that are yet in the future.  Instead of "When
> I see the blood, I will pass over you," as per our English translations, in
> the Hebrew it's literally, "When I saw the blood, I passed over you."
>
> Gary
>
> ||||||||||||||||||||||||
> EARLIER POST:
>
>             What is the significance of the past tense verbs in Ex. 12:13
> ("When I saw the blood, I passed over you")?

HH: But this is waw conversive, which is commonly 
understood to switch the perfective verb to have 
an imperfective sense (here future).

Yours,
Harold Holmyard